The one thing that DOES bother me about NBC's coverage is they split up the events. So for instance, they will show half the figure skating competition at 8PM and then come back to it around 10:30PM. In between you'll get all the other stuff. I understand why they do it, but I'd much prefer they show it all at 10PM and show the whole thing. They do this with all of their premiere events (except hockey I think where they will show a whole game, but generally those games are not shown during primetime except the medal round games.)

That's the point. NBC pays BILLIONS of dollars to be the exclusive Olympics broadcaster for the US. Then they have to figure out how to get the most viewers and highest possible ratings so they can sell enough advertising to make back those BILLIONS of dollars. Do you really think that if they just had coverage of the competitions without all the extra fluff that the ratings would increase? Do you really think they haven't researched this extensively? Of course those of us who are passionate sports fans want to see the competition and don't care about the human interest stories. But we don't pay the bills. NBC needs to appeal to a much broader demographic and be able to bring in families, women who don't know or care anything about sports, men who generally don't care about sports, men who like football and basketball but know nothing about figure skating and snowboarding, etc. They have to try and make their coverage appeal to everyone. And in order to do that, they have to make it less appealing for the die hards. That's just an economic fact. If they produced the type of coverage that you (and I) want, they'd lose money. And they are in this to make a profit.

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You are talking about the network that moved Leno to 10 pm. I think they researched that, too.

I never said it was easy to do. Just not very interesting to watch especially when they're not racing against each other at the same time. Now add in the extremely high stakes of the Olympics, a little rooting for your national team, and a little personal information and I might care enough to watch. We've already seen that basically nobody watches Skiing when it's not the Olympics. Clearly something needs to be done to make people watch when it's the Olympics. THe high stakes adds a lot. Now just tell me who these competitors are. I don't need a 30 minute piece on them, just a brief explanation of their history and their previous results in high level competition.

That's the point. NBC pays BILLIONS of dollars to be the exclusive Olympics broadcaster for the US. Then they have to figure out how to get the most viewers and highest possible ratings so they can sell enough advertising to make back those BILLIONS of dollars. Do you really think that if they just had coverage of the competitions without all the extra fluff that the ratings would increase? Do you really think they haven't researched this extensively?

Of course those of us who are passionate sports fans want to see the competition and don't care about the human interest stories. But we don't pay the bills. NBC needs to appeal to a much broader demographic and be able to bring in families, women who don't know or care anything about sports, men who generally don't care about sports, men who like football and basketball but know nothing about figure skating and snowboarding, etc. They have to try and make their coverage appeal to everyone. And in order to do that, they have to make it less appealing for the die hards. That's just an economic fact. If they produced the type of coverage that you (and I) want, they'd lose money. And they are in this to make a profit.

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There will be some of us who gives a RA on the Olympics and will not be watching at all.

shouldn't they always be in merica so we can watch the events in prime time?

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No. They can have every other Olympics in Canada and be able to do it as well. Of course, if NBC is showing it, it won't be live in the western half of the country even if it's being held in the western half of North America (e.g. Salt Lake City, Vancouver).

The USA is pretty much the only country that ranks countries by total medals. The "standard" method is by most gold medals, with silvers and then bronzes used only as tiebreakers.

My idea: don't hold all of the events in the same country. Yes, I realize that pretty much the entire point of the Olympics is to get athletes of all nations together at one time and place, but they're trying to squeeze in too much in a two-week period. Besides, (a) 3/4 of the teams in the men's soccer tournament never get to the host city except for the closing ceremonies, and (b) a considerable number of athletes skip the opening ceremony, either because they have events in the next day or two, or because their events are in the second week (e.g. track and field) and they don't bother going to the site before then.
Why not have, say, the basketball in one country, the boxing in a second, the track and field in a third, and so on?

That is what the World Cup is for. And the international basketball federation is trying to setup a "World Cup of Basketball" so that baseball gets a prime international spotlight with nothing else going on to compete for attention.

But nor really sure how moving events to different countries solves any issues with things getting lost in the shuffle.

I never said it was easy to do. Just not very interesting to watch especially when they're not racing against each other at the same time. Now add in the extremely high stakes of the Olympics, a little rooting for your national team, and a little personal information and I might care enough to watch. We've already seen that basically nobody watches Skiing when it's not the Olympics. Clearly something needs to be done to make people watch when it's the Olympics. THe high stakes adds a lot. Now just tell me who these competitors are. I don't need a 30 minute piece on them, just a brief explanation of their history and their previous results in high level competition.

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I think you're a bit exaggerating there. The vast majority of those pieces are probably no more than 10 minutes. Occasionally they will have a longer piece on someone with a very compelling story. And usually those I watch. And usually those are more about the host country than an athlete. So I expect to see a piece perhaps on Sochi and the strife in all the countries around it for instance Georgia and Chechnia are fairly close by). I will find that interesting. To me anyway, without those introductions to the key "players" it would be a little like watching a TV show and jumping into the middle of the plot from the beginning. You'd feel somewhat lost.

Also realize, that the Winter Olympics has FAR fewer events than summer, so there might be times they have to fill. They could do that by showing the WHOLE skiing competition for instance. But I don't know about you, watching the non-contenders ski is really boring. I'd rather watch the puff pieces

I think you're a bit exaggerating there. The vast majority of those pieces are probably no more than 10 minutes. Occasionally they will have a longer piece on someone with a very compelling story. And usually those I watch. And usually those are more about the host country than an athlete. So I expect to see a piece perhaps on Sochi and the strife in all the countries around it for instance Georgia and Chechnia are fairly close by). I will find that interesting. To me anyway, without those introductions to the key "players" it would be a little like watching a TV show and jumping into the middle of the plot from the beginning. You'd feel somewhat lost.

Also realize, that the Winter Olympics has FAR fewer events than summer, so there might be times they have to fill. They could do that by showing the WHOLE skiing competition for instance. But I don't know about you, watching the non-contenders ski is really boring. I'd rather watch the puff pieces

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Yeah, the Winter Olympics aren't great as I pretty much avoid all "judging" sports. By that I mean sports where the results are solely determined by judges like figure skating and gymnastics. I find it incredibly boring as I can never tell what's truly good short of falling/not falling. I like the racing style sports where there's a clock as the primary scorer. I know that many of those sports have judges but those are mostly referees whose job is just to make sure no rules were violated. The clock, measuring tape or scoreboard (from goals or non-judged points) determine the winner.

Yeah, the Winter Olympics aren't great as I pretty much avoid all "judging" sports. By that I mean sports where the results are solely determined by judges like figure skating and gymnastics. I find it incredibly boring as I can never tell what's truly good short of falling/not falling. I like the racing style sports where there's a clock as the primary scorer. I know that many of those sports have judges but those are mostly referees whose job is just to make sure no rules were violated. The clock, measuring tape or scoreboard (from goals or non-judged points) determine the winner.

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I watch it all, and I realize that the judging is probably very subjective and much of it is based on reputation. And when it's blatantly bad, it's good water cooler talk for the next day at work. Sort of like it was in the 60s and 70s when boxing was in its heyday and people would complain about boxers being jobbed on the decision. To me, those sports are about entertainment most of the time. And I like to watch these expert skaters fall on their butts and listen to the announcers sound like they are about to cry. I guess it's a little like watching an auto race for the crashes.

I much prefer the races, and hockey. I will watch a LOT of hockey if I can, especially USA, Russia, Canada and Sweden.